With the safety belt system disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,917,210 the piston/cylinder unit is attached in a parallel manner to the vehicle floor and possesses a cable deflection means mounted on an end wall of the cylinder. The cable deflection means has the purpose of redirecting the traction cable, which is caused to extend parallel to the cylinder where it is near the cylinder, obliquely upward in the force direction of the safety belt which is to be connected with the belt buckle. The known safety belt system has, however, a very large overall size, something which is a particular disadvantage in view of the shortage of space available adjacent to the belt buckle anchoring means.